Offering hope, freedom for RI wildlife

Maria Lisa K., Contributor, Jakarta

Like all macaques that end up in Jakarta, this particular one had been taken as a baby from his mother in the jungles of Lampung, Sumatra, only to live out a solitary life neglected and finally abandoned by the owners in South Jakarta when it became too difficult to control.

For months, the one-year-old macaque had been chained to a fence in the bend of a busy road, inches away from passing motor vehicles, after the owner decided it was too inconvenient to keep him in the house.

Teased daily by passing schoolchildren armed with sticks, the monkey relied on handouts from the vendor selling noodles next to him as there was never any food or water in his reach.

But his life completely changed one day when a complaint from a concerned neighbor was forwarded to ProAnimalia International, a non-governmental organization (NGO) in Jakarta. Within hours, three women from the NGO arrived to pick up the mistreated primate and take him back with them to the Tegal Alur wildlife rescue center near Cengkareng.

Rehabilitation

The monkey is now in quarantine for two months, during which time he will also receive medical care for the bruises and cuts caused by the harness and chain he wore for most of his life.

His next move will be to the 14-hectare Sukabumi wildlife rescue center, where new cages have been built on a one-hectare site provided for the rescued macaques to help them learn to survive in a natural habitat and form groups with other primates surrendered by owners.

Once the monkeys are in groups, they will be released back into the wild, which in this case is a 17-hectare island in Pulau Seribu, sometime near the end of June. "This island's perfect for them: there's a river for them to catch fish, a beach for them to hunt for small crabs and there's no animals on this island so they can't harm other creatures," said ProAnimalia's director, Femke den Haas, who has also been working at the rescue center for three years.

The island was selected for the monkeys' release after a survey was carried out in cooperation with the Forestry Department, as, den Haas pointed out, they know which islands are protected and suitable for monkeys and where there are no predators or animals that could be hunted by the macaques. "For example, we didn't want them to wipe out a population of birds."

Precautionary measures have also been taken to ensure that the monkeys will not be recaptured for the pet trade again.

Den Haas said that the release of the monkeys was being done in cooperation with the Forestry Department and that the island was in a national park, which requires a permit if anyone wishes to enter.

Microchips are also planted in all animals before their release in order to identify the individual if it dies and to act as a further deterrent against the threat of it being captured again.

She said once the monkeys were released on the island, they could take in the macaques from the other rescue centers in Indonesia as their main sponsor, the Gibbon Foundation in Switzerland, does not pay for the costs of returning non- protected animals back to the wild.

"These macaques (at other rescue centers) are sitting there waiting for a program for them, and that's why we want to hurry their release and be able to take them in, as well as those that are still living in isolation in Jakarta."

Nonprotected species cared for, too

Not only does the rescue center take in endangered wildlife, but it receives nonprotected species, such as the macaques, which also need funding for their care and to get them back into the wild as well, she noted.

And it was because of the sad plight of the overlooked macaques and other nonprotected animals that den Haas, together with Karmele Llano Sanchez, ProAnimalia's veterinary curator, started the NGO in Holland in May 2004. The latest member to join the team is Wendy Bos, a fundraiser for the group from Holland, who often accompanies the others on field trips and documents their activities.

Concerned individuals are encouraged to call the rescue center and report the location of a primate or animal in distress, and action will be taken as soon as possible, depending on the urgency of the situation and the facilities available.

"If a monkey is being badly beaten or mistreated and they need us to come straight away, we will, but if it is an animal that has been there for a long time, and it can wait for another month, and if we cannot take it at that moment, then it depends because we don't have that much money or staff to run the program at this time."

Den Haas stressed that all information from calls made on behalf of animals needing rescue would be entered into a database.

Eight staff members take care of more than 100 animals presently residing at the Tegal Alur wildlife rescue center. These include raptors, cockatoos, lovebirds from Papua, slow lorises, siamangs, macaques, gibbons, monitor lizards, snakes, turtles, crocodiles, bears and wildcats. An orangutan has recently joined the temporary residents, after it was rescued from a dark hotel room where it had spent six years of its life in a small cage.

The Gibbon Foundation, in cooperation with the Forestry Department, built the center as a backup for law enforcement programs as the department needed to take care of the wildlife it confiscated, she explained.

There are eight other centers in the country that make up the Indonesian rescue center network. Another refuge is in the planning stages for Sumatra, where 80 percent of the animals that find their way to the rescue centers are from.

But as Jakarta is the center for Indonesia's thriving pet trade, the Tegal Alur rescue center receives the most animals. In 2003 alone, the center took in over 700 animals.

"If we have enough cages we keep them here for the full two months (quarantine), but if orangutans are coming in or other animals, we need to give them a chance as well, so we send the macaques to the Sukabumi center."

Learning survival skills

She said although some animals could be released quite quickly, most of them, such as monkeys that have been living with people for a long time and which have not been introduced to other primates, face a long rehabilitation process that could take up to years.

"When people ask us how long does it take for a monkey to be released into the wild, we answer that it completely depends on the individual: how long it's been in captivity, and how long it was with its mother before it was captured."

The main reason is that younger primates need to learn survival skills for living in the forest. "If we receive a baby that has been confiscated, then it never learned those skills that he needs to survive from his mother," she said, adding that macaques and gibbons stay with their mothers for six years.

The skills they need to survive, which they would have learned from their mother, need to be learned through the rehabilitation program, which is a very long and intensive process, she said. "In addition, all primates are completely traumatized, because they lose their mother in front of their eyes; that is the only way a hunter can catch a baby gibbon."

As all the monkeys that arrive at the rescue center are "mentally ill from living a life in isolation and being beaten", she said the first step in their rehabilitation process was to win back their trust and help them learn to become a monkey again.

"Younger primates require more intensive care, especially gibbons, which are extremely sensitive and sometimes require the 24-hour care of a substitute mother."

Primates also need to slowly adapt to a new diet, as former pet owners would have fed them human food, such as rice, satay or whatever else was around.

Wider educational function

Apart from directly rescuing animals in critical situations, ProAnimalia provides animal welfare education, campaigns for better protection of the macaques' and advises and assists local governments and residents to find humane solutions to control crop-raiding macaques.

Sanchez said there was hope in talking to children about the dangers of owning wildlife as they in turn could influence their parents, by making them feel ashamed about buying wildlife.

Owners and handlers of monkeys run the risk of contracting transmittable diseases, such as herpes, hepatitis or tuberculosis.

Sanchez stressed that educating children was important and although the members of the NGO were working seven days a week at the rescue center, they would be available to give a presentation at schools if requested.

"Macaques are quite popular to keep as pets, but the problem is once they turn four, five or six years old, they become aggressive and people want to dump them," den Haas said.

What also is not known to the buyer is that for every macaque that ends up as a pet, at least three others have been killed, usually the mother and its relatives, as primates protect each other.

In addition, 50 percent of all baby macaques caught in the wild die from stress, deprivation or malnutrition. They also die from infections or internal bleeding caused by a hunter's bullets.

The group has in its care 40 macaques; 20 of them have been rescued this year, and another 20 have been handed over to the Sukabumi rescue center.

"We hope to make this program bigger, to raise enough funds to help macaques on a bigger scale," den Haas said.

For further information, call the rescue center directly on 5554219, or visit ProAnimalia's website at www.ProAnimalia.org.